BERLIN -Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned Monday that European powers would “pay the price” if they sent weapons to rebel forces seeking to topple him.“If the Europeans deliver weapons, then Europe’s backyard will become terrorist, and Europe will pay the price for ...

BEIRUT - Syria's outgoing opposition chief published an initiative for his war-torn country on Thursday that would grant President Bashar al-Assad a safe exit, and urged dissident factions to adopt his plan. Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib published his initiative on Facebook, as the main National Coalition ...

AMMAN - Major powers urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday to commit to peace and step down as they gathered in neighbouring Jordan to discuss preparations for a Russian- and US-proposed peace conference.Ahead of a meeting of the Friends of Syria group in Amman, US Secretary of State ...

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to crank up pressure on Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad Thursday, but offered no concrete new measures to do so.Obama warned there was no “magic formula” to force Assad to leave power, ...

    damascus   Syria's President Bashar al-Assad made a rare public visit on Wednesday to an electrical plant in centralDamascusto mark Labour Day, the presidency's official Facebook page said. "President Assad is now visiting the Umayyad electrical plant ...

DAMASCUS  - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned Western states on Wednesday that they will pay a heavy price at home for their alleged support of militants in the Syrian conflict and said defeat of his regime was not an option.Assad, whose regime has been battling rebels trying to oust him ...

DAMASCUS President Bashar al-Assad declared a general amnesty on Tuesday as the conflict ravaging Syria showed no signs of abating, with Western and Russian differences proving unbridgeable.Under the latest decree, troops who deserted but did not fight against the regime may be pardoned if they ...

BEIRUT - The public pledge of allegiance to Al-Qaeda by Syria's fiercest rebel group, Al-Nusra Front, serves the interests of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, analysts say."It's a point in the regime's favour because it reinforces the official narrative that claims (the army faces) terrorist ...

DAMASCUS  - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed to “cleanse” his country of extremism, a day after a suicide bomber killed more than 45 people in a mosque including a key pro-regime Sunni cleric.The attack was also condemned by the opposition, who raised the possibility that the ...

BEIRUT (AFP/Reuters) - Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday called on the BRICS nations to intervene to end the conflict in his country, in a letter delivered by his adviser Bouthaina Shaaban during a trip to South Africa.Speaking to AFP, Shaaban said she had delivered the letter to South ...

DAMASCUS - President Bashar al-Assad said on Tuesday his regime has defeated the “conspiracy” against Syria, even as rebels overran a provincial capital and captured its governor in the biggest coup of their revolt.Assad, in comments published in the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, also ...

DAMASCUS  - Russia’s prime minister on Sunday said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had made a “grave, perhaps fatal error” by delaying political reforms, as Damascus courted opposition forces.“He should have acted much more quickly and reached out to the peaceful ...

DAMASCUS/DAVOS - Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad attended prayers at a Damascus mosque on Thursday, in a rare public appearance, as his troops bombarded rebel districts of Homs in the centre of the country.Key Damascus regional ally Iran, meanwhile, warned that Syria as it near a ...

MOSCOW  - Russia on Sunday said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s removal from power was not a part of past international agreements on the crisis and impossible to implement.“This is a precondition that is not contained in the Geneva communique (agreed by world powers in June) ...

DAMASCUS/VREDEPEEL  - A defiant speech by President Bashar al-Assad calling for peace in Syria on his terms has met rejection by the opposition and internationally, with only his ally Iran on Monday backing his stance.Assad’s plan was “detached from reality,” a US State ...

DAMASCUS - Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held talks in Syria on Monday with President Bashar al-Assad, as rebels seized large parts of a village populated by the embattled leader’s Alawite community.The opposition National Coalition, meanwhile, accused Damascus of committing a ...

DAMASCUS - President Bashar al-Assad's deputy said a clear winner is unlikely to emerge from Syria's 21-month war, in remarks published on Monday, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon voiced alarm at escalating bloodshed.Faruq al-Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim, also told the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar he preferred a ...

DOHA/DAMASCUS  - Syrians from a wide spectrum of opposition to President Bashar al-Assad began meeting in Doha Thursday to hammer out a government-in-waiting world powers will accept as credible and representative.Many in Syria’s opposition, including rebels battling pro-regime forces, ...

Damascus  - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday rejected calls that he seek a safe exit, vowing he would “live and die in Syria”, in an interview with Russian Arabic-language channel Rusiya Al-Yaum. “I am not a puppet.... I am Syrian and I must live and die in ...

The West is trying to convince Russia to offer Syrian President Bashar Assad political asylum, although Russia claims it has no intention of doing so, media reports said Wednesday."Western countries, and above all the United States, are making active attempts to persuade Moscow to take in the ...

DAMASCUS  - Russia said on Tuesday that President Bashar al-Assad could leave power as part of a settlement to end bloodshed in Syria, as Saudi Arabia called on Moscow to end its support for his embattled regime.Moscow is under growing pressure to back Assad's departure as a first step in a ...

DAMASCUS - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced on Tuesday parliamentary elections for May 7, as more than 35 people were killed in violence across Syria on Tuesday, including 22 members of the security forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.“Twelve members of the security ...

BEIRUT  - President Bashar al-Assad told UN/Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on Saturday that no political solution was possible in Syria while “terrorist” groups were destabilising the country.“Syria is ready to make a success of any honest effort to find a solution for the ...

Whenever the world seemed to start caving in around them, Syrian politicians have leaned on the Russians for support. Moscow, both now and during the Soviet era, has always been Syria’s “security blanket”. Syrian leaders, however, have almost equally misjudged how far Russia was ...

DAMASCUS - Syrian security forces on Sunday flooded a tense neighbourhood where a mourner was shot dead in the largest anti-regime rally seen in Damascus, activists said, blunting calls for a "day of defiance."With protesters more emboldened in Damascus after 11 months of revolt which has largely ...

DAMASCUS  - Syria’s president has called a referendum on a new constitution that would effectively end nearly five decades of single party rule, state media said Wednesday, as troops reportedly stormed protest hubs.A day after flatly rejecting UN allegations of crimes against humanity, ...

DAMASCUS  - Russia's foreign minister said after talks in Damascus on Tuesday that President Bashar al-Assad was "fully committed" to ending the bloodshed in Syria even as regime tanks pounded the city of Homs for a fourth straight day.Sergei Lavrov said he had had a "very useful" meeting with ...

WASHINGTON  - The United States, European governments and Arab states have begun discussing the possibility of exile for Bashar al-Assad despite skepticism the defiant Syrian president is ready to consider such an offer, Western officials said on Wednesday. While talks have not progressed far ...

BEIRUT  - Syria on Monday rebuffed as a “conspiracy” an Arab League call for President Bashar al-Assad to step down in favour of a unity government to calm a 10-month-old revolt in which thousands of Syrians have been killed.Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour criticised the ...

DAMASCUS- Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has decreed a general amnesty for crimes committed during unrest in the country over the past 10 months, the official SANA news agency said on Sunday.“President Assad issued a decree stipulating a general amnesty for crimes committed during ...